Supermarket parking

[Reallyretired]

Very useful thread. The parking at our local Morrisons is very tight and many customers park at B&Q over the road. Obviously we don't take the MH to our local supermarkets (as it is in store 18miles away and there are 6 supermarkets within a mile or so of our house)

I shall make a point of not using Morrisons or Waitrose as they are unsympathetic to our needs. I prefer Sainsburys anyway, though Tesco is the nearest, and I like Lidl but they rarely seem to have what we need.

 

[Trikimiki]

A week ago we were discussing restrictions in supermarket car parks on Broken Link Removed. As a result I sent the following e-mail to the CEOs/MDs of Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose.

So far I've had positive responses from
Asda
and Tesco
I wasn't quite sure what this meant whilst so asked for clarification and was told
Unfortunately, a negative response from Morrisons
I've received acknowledgements from Aldi, Sainsburys and Waitrose but nothing yet from Lidl. I'll post their substantive responses when received.

My senility must be accelerating to me the Morrisons reply does not make sense. We accommodate all vehicle types but YOUR vehicle cannot park over multiple bays.
OR
Have you to park in 1 bay and block the passageway?

 

[rainbow chasers]

Good effort I say - at least you have managed to get the situation clarified. We now know which supermarkets to avoid!

The bulk of them say Welcome....

Waitrose & Morrisons say Neigh..... A topical response I guess!

 

[GJH]

Just received a positive response from Sainsburys

Thank you for your email about our store car parks. I understand your concern over the use of multiple bays for motor homes and I am grateful for this opportunity to explain.

We always aim to provide the facilities our customers require to make their shopping trips easy and enjoyable. We currently offer motor home parking bays at stores which are in popular tourist locations. Where we do not have dedicated parking bays for motor homes available, our customers are welcome to park their vehicles across multiple bays in a manner that is considerate to others.

Should a customer require more than one parking bay for their motor home, we ask that this does not block the circulation routes within or access to the car park. Upon entrance to the store please make our customer service colleagues aware of your requirements and they will ensure a penalty charge notice is not issued.

I am grateful to you for taking the time to contact me and hope I have reassured you of our commitment to our customers. We look forward to seeing you in store again soon.

 

[Larby]

Just received a positive response from Sainsburys
Quote:
Thank you for your email about our store car parks. I understand your concern over the use of multiple bays for motor homes and I am grateful for this opportunity to explain.

We always aim to provide the facilities our customers require to make their shopping trips easy and enjoyable. We currently offer motor home parking bays at stores which are in popular tourist locations. Where we do not have dedicated parking bays for motor homes available, our customers are welcome to park their vehicles across multiple bays in a manner that is considerate to others.

Should a customer require more than one parking bay for their motor home, we ask that this does not block the circulation routes within or access to the car park. Upon entrance to the store please make our customer service colleagues aware of your requirements and they will ensure a penalty charge notice is not issued.

I am grateful to you for taking the time to contact me and hope I have reassured you of our commitment to our customers. We look forward to seeing you in store again soon.
=========================================================================
That's more like it................Nice one Sainsbury's

Thanks
'
Peter

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[GJH]

Further response from Waitrose, not much different:

Thank you for your return email of 13th February. I was sorry to learn that you were disappointed with my response and I apologise for the additional trouble you have been caused in having to write to me again. I hope you will appreciate that we cannot offer a response for all of our branches as the majority of our car parks are owned by third party companies. However, I can assure you that our branches are always keen to accommodate our customers requests and will be happy to advise you of their decision on this matter when approached. I hope we may look forward to your continued custom.

 

[teddybard]

Good effort I say - at least you have managed to get the situation clarified. We now know which supermarkets to avoid!

The bulk of them say Welcome....

Waitrose & Morrisons say Neigh..... A topical response I guess!

Most Towns have Supermarkets OTHER than
Wartrose or Morrisons
So I suppose the answer is to use them instead :thumb:

 

[GJH]

Positive response just received from Lidl:

We refer to your most recent communication in relation to the parking facilities at our stores throughout the UK.
We have consulted with our colleagues in our Property Office and can confirm that our genuine customers should not be concerned due to the size of their larger vehicles providing that the vehicles are parked sensibly, even if this is over two spaces.
Should you experience any difficulties within our Store Car Parks in the future, please contact our Customer Service Department on the telephone number below, and we will endeavour to assist where possible.
We trust that you will continue to remain a valued Lidl customer.
Yours sincerely,
For and on behalf of Lidl UK GmbH
Customer Services
Tel: 0870 4441234
Fax: 01506 591540

 

[Larby]

With another helpful response from LIDL as well as ALDI no wonder they have become successfull

 

[WillH]

We went to a Morrisons in Granton, Edinburgh last year. It has a small ground level car park and a multi storey adjacent. We were unable to get parked in the ground level so gave up and went to fill up at their filling station opposite. I mentioned to the lass on the till the difficulty we were having and she told us to park in the disabled bays at the back of the car park. We did this and then, inside the store spoke, to a supervisor, she confirmed this was okay.

Rgds
Bill

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[Barclaybasher]

Appreciate Graham's efforts to clarify parking at supermarkets :thumb:

- but has anyone actually had problems ?

I park to shop and have never had a problem - always park well away from others - too easy to get 'dings' on the side of a coachbuilt..........................

 

[cmcardle75]

Appreciate Graham's efforts to clarify parking at supermarkets :thumb:

- but has anyone actually had problems ?

I park to shop and have never had a problem - always park well away from others - too easy to get 'dings' on the side of a coachbuilt..........................

Round here there is only problems at Morrisons, who have a 2m height restriction bar. Where there isn't a restriction and there is free parking, I've never had any problem at all. Pay parking can be a problem.

 

[john kyte]

My van ,only 5metres long,, cant get under the height barriers at Salisbury Park and ride .The barrier is 8 ft off the ground,,my van is 9 ft high,,, so I cant use the Park and Ride,,but I guess they wont worry about that because I have a bus pass anyway

 

[GJH]

My van ,only 5metres long,, cant get under the height barriers at Salisbury Park and ride .The barrier is 8 ft off the ground,,my van is 9 ft high,,, so I cant use the Park and Ride,,but I guess they wont worry about that because I have a bus pass anyway

Motorhome parking is available at Britford P&R. See the link Here under Wiltshire Council.

The height restriction at all sites is 2.4 metres (8 ft). However, the Broken Link Removed site has a large dedicated area with no height restrictions for oversize vehicles.

 

[camocam1]

A slight aside but may be of interest to some members
I contacted Dobbies Garden Centres head office last year and asked about parking the MH overnight at the site on outskirts of Perth next to a travel lodge and a Brewers Fayre type pub
This was passed on to the branch manager who replied to say that provided I emailed the store in advance they were happy for me to park up overnight in the "secure" carpark as gates locked from 6pm - 8 am
I believe other sites also allow the same

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[GJH]

A slight aside but may be of interest to some members
I contacted Dobbies Garden Centres head office last year and asked about parking the MH overnight at the site on outskirts of Perth next to a travel lodge and a Brewers Fayre type pub
This was passed on to the branch manager who replied to say that provided I emailed the store in advance they were happy for me to park up overnight in the "secure" carpark as gates locked from 6pm - 8 am
I believe other sites also allow the same

Interesting but it would have to be an informal arrangement to avoid the requirement for a licence.

 

[jonandshell]

Morrisons are up shit creek anyway. They bought and sold Kiddicare at a multi-million pound loss and really aren't doing well.
One would have thought they would appreciate our custom for their shops and LPG pumps but sadly not.

 

[jonandshell]

They wrecked Kiddicare and lots of jobs went as a result.

 

[magicsurfbus]

Thanks for what you do GJH - always appreciated.

I'm increasingly nervous about parking where the car parks are managed by third party companies, given that people have been given tickets at our local Sainsbury's if they're seen to wander off site to visit another shop before going into the supermarket, despite the three hour limit. If they can be that petty, what chance do you have with multi-bay parking?

 

[camocam1]

Interesting but it would have to be an informal arrangement to avoid the requirement for a licence.

Yea it would but think it's just a case of a call to local manager (or email) and get it agreed and nice safe place to stay and a cheap breakfast in the morning ( bit like unofficial Brit stop)

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[Baggers53]

Well done on creating this thread....it would be useful if it were bought to the attention of
the national press....on a more practical level we park our motorhome on Morrisons in Bude,
always having to take up two bays, however with this being a popular tourist location and many
MH do the same it does not seem to be an issue.

 

[keith]

The one thing this tread has thrown up is that if you take care to ask or inform the particular company refusal is seldom the result.
Maybe not with Morrisons or Waitrose as it appears most of us are now going to avoid them.

 

[Tootles]

As do others on here, I choose a double parking place as far away from the building as possible, however, if it looks a bit 'iffy', I stay with the truck whilst Alison shops. That way, if hassle happens in the form of a contract parking attendant, I can keep him busy until she returns, but that hasn't happened yet.
I do find a strong conflict between supermarket advertising policy, and those who control things within the individual companies. "COME AND SHOP WITH US!" say the adverts......."Don't shop with us if you own a motorhome", say the office guru's.
Well done Graham! And Stirling work from a lad whose home town only discovered supermarkets in the 90's.

 

[GJH]

Thanks for what you do GJH - always appreciated.

I'm increasingly nervous about parking where the car parks are managed by third party companies, given that people have been given tickets at our local Sainsbury's if they're seen to wander off site to visit another shop before going into the supermarket, despite the three hour limit. If they can be that petty, what chance do you have with multi-bay parking?

If in doubt what I normally do is have a word with the customer service desk in the store (usually leaving Jill at the van so she can move it if necessary).

Since this thread started we have used two of the Morrisons stores where there are restrictions (Blackpool in July 2013 and Malvern in July last year). In both cases I explained at customer services that we had parked towards the rear of the car park and would only be there to do some shopping and to get some diesel on the way out but wanted to be sure we would not receive a ticket if we did so. In both cases we were given the all clear as genuine customers.

I think, though, that it did help that on both occasions I mentioned that I knew there was a Tesco fairly close where I knew we could park and we could always go there if Morrisons didn't want our business

 

[Spidey]

We stop in our local Morrisons in Chippenham easily. Very nice one with a large easy access car park. I stopped at one near Cheddar recently and mentioned to the customer service people and they said it would be fine. If in doubt i always ask . I prefer Morrisons shops to Tesco or Sainsburys

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[Puddleduck]

The best policy is always to ask I find, if you are refused (only happened once) you can move on.

I have parked in IKEA at the back of the car park and let customer services know. "Not a problem" they always say. In Edinburgh you can walk from the back of IKEA's car park to Sainsbury where the parking is a bit tight. I like to get a dink and something to eat in IKEA so am a genuine customer.

 

[GJH]

We stop in our local Morrisons in Chippenham easily. Very nice one with a large easy access car park. I stopped at one near Cheddar recently and mentioned to the customer service people and they said it would be fine. If in doubt i always ask . I prefer Morrisons shops to Tesco or Sainsburys

Most Morrisons (like our local one at Teesside Park where we often see motorhomes) don't have restrictions, just the ones where they have problems. The one which prompted this thread, for instance, had restrictions to stop commuters using a local railway station clogging up the car park.
The problem with the ones with restrictions is that they use the standard set which include not using multiple bays as well as overstaying and they aren't flexible enough to may exceptions for motorhomes.

 

[Madwife]

Since expanding their store and car park we have seen lots more motorhomes at the Morrisons at Berwick upon Tweed. The new extension to the car park has much better bays and is a handy stopping off point for people going north or south on the A1

Kath

 

[JockandRita]

As do others on here, I choose a double parking place as far away from the building as possible, however, if it looks a bit 'iffy', I stay with the truck whilst Alison shops. That way, if hassle happens in the form of a contract parking attendant, I can keep him busy until she returns, but that hasn't happened yet.

Same here.

At Morrisons in Stamford (Lincs) and Tewkesbury, where parking can be tight with a MH, if no tanker is present, I pull up on the tanker bay and call into the filling station booth, and ask if they are expecting a fuel delivery in the next 30 mins, as I'd like to quickly grab some essentials and then fuel up if possible. The staff have been accommodating on each occasion.

At Morrisons in Ayr, (again tight parking), I pull up onto their loading bay area, (but not to impede deliveries), and ask a member of staff if okay for a few minutes. If no one about to ask, I stay with the MH, while Rita shops.
And it's the same routine at Aldi in Grantham, but using the Dunelm loading bay area next door.

Keep up the good work please Graham. It is definitely much appreciated.

Cheers for now,

Jock.

 

[Larby]

For Morrison's in Newquay, go down the side of Macdonalds and park in the hammerhead alongside LIDL.
Then nip through the hedge.
For LIDL in Hayle, park in the large delivery area alongside.

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